The Lycanthropy of Sirius Black
by Maraudess
Summary: What if Sirius was the werewolf, instead of Remus? One-shot. Sirius/Remus.


Remus knew what day it was, could feel it in his bones before he had even completely stirred under his sheets. Sirius was already thrashing around the dorm, slamming the lid of his trunk and banging drawers open. Remus didn't need a calendar to know the full moon was tonight; even if he didn't keep careful track of the moon's cycle, he'd know.

He peeled himself away from the warmth of his bed and stood shivering in the space between his four-poster and Sirius's. Fully clothed but back in bed, Sirius was curled up around himself in an almost protective manner, like he was steeling himself for something. Remus smiled tightly at his friend. "Hey."

"Hey." Sirius's eyes were dark, but his face relaxed a bit as he glanced up at Remus. "Fun night tonight."

"Full moon, I know." Remus lied down next to Sirius, putting a hand on his friend's hip. His thumb stroked over the scarred bite mark there, the first casualty Sirius had experienced, the bite that turned him into a werewolf. "How are you feeling?"

"Like shit," Sirius replied, closing his eyes as Remus's thumb continued its soothing pattern over his skin. "You'll be there, tonight?"

"Like always," Remus replied. "Peter's got detention, but I think James'll be along, after his date with Lily."

Sirius's eyes fluttered open. "You don't have to do this."

"Sirius–"

"You could be off on your own dates, you know, instead of babysitting a monster every month–"

Remus silenced him with a firm kiss. "When are you going to get it through your thick skull that I love _you_?" he asked, shaking his head. Sirius pressed his lips together but said nothing. Remus sighed.

"It's going to be a bad moon tonight, isn't it?" he murmured, trailing his fingers through Sirius's long hair.

"Every moon is a bad moon. But I feel like tonight's going to be worse."

xXx

On his best days, besides being funny and brilliant and a bloody wonderful friend, Sirius could be haughty and irritating, brooding and resentful. Full Moon Sirius, however, was downright bitter, a miserable bundle of pent-up rage and agitation, ready to snap at a moment's notice.

"I'm skiving off History of Magic," he announced as he arrived at breakfast, slamming his books onto the table and shoving his plate away. "Anyone care to join?"

Peter and James consented right away, but Remus glanced down at his toast. "I should probably be there and take notes for the rest of us."

"Always the student, aren't we, Remus?" Sirius said acidly.

Remus held his ground. "Someone's got to pay attention in that class, and it's usually me, anyway. I'll take the notes and catch up with you during break, all right?"

Sirius's gaze darkened. "Some friend you are," he muttered, gulping down pumpkin juice from Remus's glass.

"Some friend _I_–" Remus spluttered, grabbing Sirius by the robe and pulling him in, hissing, "I became an illegal Animagi, something stupid and _life-threatening_, so you wouldn't have to be alone during transformations. And you're going to sit here and complain that I'm a lousy friend?"

Remus deflated before he even finished speaking, watching Sirius's expression melt into one of remorse. He knew what his friends gave up for him. Remus suddenly felt guilty, too, for jumping down Sirius's throat the morning of a full moon, when his emotions were already on edge. _You can't take him seriously today_, Remus reminded himself. _He's not himself. Just stay out of his way, and_….

Or…

Remus glanced across the table to Peter and James. "Prongs, Wormtail, would you two mind taking notes in class today? Sirius and I have some things we need to discuss."

xXx

In addition to the mood changes, Sirius also experienced a heightened sex drive during the full moon, which was why he and Remus found themselves making out in the dorm during History of Magic, half-clothed and thrusting against each other before they had even made it to a bed.

"Fuck, Remus, more–" Sirius groaned, tugging at Remus's belt.

Remus brought them over to his bed, lying Sirius down and pulling down his trousers. His intention had been a blowjob, but Sirius was too close and too impatient for that; he pulled Remus up for another kiss, his hands everywhere, rutting up against the other boy helplessly, groaning Remus's name.

When the two boys came, Sirius hissed, "_Fuck_!" and leaned in to suck a bruise into the side of Remus's neck; Remus fell forward, whimpering Sirius's nickname into his ear – "Moony, Moony, oh, Moony."

xXx

The two ended up skiving off all of their classes for the day. Remus let Sirius have his bout of rebelliousness, knowing he wouldn't get in trouble for cutting class. All the teachers knew of Sirius's condition, and McGonagall knew that Remus was the only one who could keep Sirius calm on full moon days, so she let him slide, as well.

James and Peter entered the dorm after their classes to find Sirius curled up on his side in Remus's bed, Remus gently rubbing the aches out of Sirius's shoulders. The moon always left him tense and in pain before the transformation even occurred; the mornings after were brutal. Scars littered his creamy white skin, like lattices crawling up his arms, over his chest, down his stomach, and across his legs. Only one scar marred his devastatingly handsome face. It arced across his nose diagonally, almost touching his left eye. Rather than taking away from his features, it only added to his devil-may-care persona and rugged good looks. James always rolled his eyes and said "Even when life deals you a shit hand, mate, your cards are still better than ours."

Currently, this didn't look true. Sirius winced and let out something Remus wouldn't dare call a whimper in front of him. "You okay?" he whispered.

"No, I'm not fucking okay," Sirius groaned, squeezing his eyes shut. "I'm about to rip myself apart in a few hours, how would you feel?"

"Sorry," Remus says quickly, his default word to Sirius on full moon days. _He's right, I'm wrong _– Remus developed this mentality early on after finding out about Sirius's lycanthropy, and it seemed to work rather well when trying to avoid rows.

James didn't always let Sirius get away with his moods. "We get it. It's hard. But we're trying to _help_ you, we're your friends, you don't get to bite our heads off, all right?" he'd often yell, resulting in Sirius throwing or breaking something, or attacking James in a flurry of fists, but the arguments never lasted long.

Today, James and Peter decided it was best to leave Sirius in Remus's capable hands. The two boys scurried downstairs to the common room, leaving Remus to cope alone.

"It never gets better," Sirius griped, rubbing his fists over his eyes. "Every bloody month, it hurts just as bad as the last one – and it gets worse, if I'm still hurt from the last moon or I get angry or something. It never gets easier. And my parents, they never even send a bloody owl to see how I'm feeling after a moon, to see if I'm even still alive–"

"I thought you don't care what they think," Remus offered gently.

"I _don't_. I left for a reason," Sirius snapped, sitting up and resting his chin on one knee, the other foot swinging over the floor. "Still…"

"I know."

"It sucks, Remus."

And Remus said "I know" again, grabbing Sirius's jaw and planting a kiss on the side of his head. "But that's why we're here. If there's anything we can do to make things better for you…"

Sirius sighed. "Can we go down to the Shack a little early?" he asked. "I can't eat anything, and I just sort of want to lie down and stay with you…unless you wanted dinner, or had homework or other plans, or something…"

Remus stood up and tugged Sirius towards the door, stopping to kiss him gently. "To the Shack it is," he murmured, pulling Sirius out the door behind him.

xXx

The Shrieking Shack was cold. Sirius had removed all his clothes except his boxers, and left everything folded up on top of a bureau, where the wolf couldn't reach them and ruin them. Sirius lay shivering under a blanket on the bed, with Remus's strong arms wrapped around him. Usually, if all of the Marauders were present, they would play cards or dice or find some way to occupy their time. Alone, though, Sirius dropped all defenses, and just lay still, watching Remus's face with haunted silver eyes.

"I'm scared, Remus," he admitted. He didn't always voice these thoughts, but Remus could always tell he was thinking them. Sirius wasn't a Gryffindor for nothing, but he never really got used to the flesh-tearing, bone-snapping, mind-altering transformations. Remus doubted anyone could really get used to turning into a monster once a month.

"I'll be right here," he promised, brushing a hand over Sirius's forehead. "When you transform until the moment you change back, I'll stay."

"I don't want to change," Sirius whispered. "Can we run away? Do you think we could outrun the moon?"

A flash of silver crept in through the window; the clouds were parting, the sun had finished setting, and it was now the moon's turn to occupy the sky. "Next month, we'll try it out," Remus promised. If anyone could outrun the moon, it was a star like Sirius.

Sirius suddenly jerked forward like he had been punched in the gut. "Fuck," he whispered. "Remus, please, help–"

Remus grabbed his face and kissed him once, fleetingly. "I've got to go, Sirius, but I'll be right here when you wake up, I swear."

"Remus, please…" Sirius hissed; Remus heard a sharp crack as a few of his bones readjusted themselves. Remus shifted into his Animagus form, a German shepherd, and stood back a few feet to wait for Sirius to finish transforming, shouting out in pain the whole time. Finally, a large black wolf loomed over Remus, threw his head back, and howled.

xXx

Naked, bleeding, shivering, aching – Sirius blinked his eyes open the next morning and noticed before anything else that someone had, at some point, placed a blanket over him. Then he glanced up and saw Remus kneeling beside him, a wand in his hand as he immediately began treating the less severe wounds Sirius had sustained during the night. "Remus?" he mumbled, throat sore and voice raspy.

Remus blinked and jumped to his feet. "Hey," he said, and quickly returned with a glass of water for Sirius. "Drink this. How do you feel?"

"Like shit," Sirius replied honestly, struggling to sit up. Remus put a hand on his back, then ran a palm over Sirius's forehead.

"Anything broken? Sprained? Hurt more than usual?" he asked, worried eyes seeking out any telltale signs of pain on Sirius's face.

Sirius took a quick inventory of his body. Limbs still intact – no broken bone visible anywhere, ribs possibly bruised but not shattered, so that was a plus. "I don't think I'm broken," he answered, cracking his neck and stretching his arms. "Sore, though."

"I'll fix that later," Remus murmured, picking up his wand again and healing the shallower cuts on Sirius's arms. "Your legs don't actually look too bad. You just scratched yourself up a little before I could distract you. Will Madame Pomfrey get too suspicious if I close everything up?"

"I don't care," Sirius replied, closing his eyes and leaning back on his elbows. "But yeah, it probably won't look too good. Leave a couple so she doesn't get jealous that somebody else has seen me naked."

Remus smirked, but his eyebrows furrowed in concern as he pulled the blanket away. "Sirius, you reopened one wound…"

"Which one?" Sirius asked, glancing down before realizing which one Remus was talking about. The initial bite, delivered by a Mr. Fenrir Greyback. Nasty bloke, Sirius assumed, if he would bite a five-year-old and try to bring him over to the Dark side. Greyback would have been better off biting Regulus, Sirius often thought – Mr. and Mrs. Black would have considered it one step closer to the ever-rising Dark Lord, but unfortunately for them, the white sheep of the Black family had gotten the bite instead and had no intention of using his furry little problem for evil.

Currently, though, the werewolf bite on Sirius's hip was pooling up with blood. "Christ, fix it," he murmured, throwing one arm over his eyes so he wouldn't have to look. It was a gruesome enough injury on its own, but it took a nasty amount of time to re-heal if disturbed. Sirius figured it was the Dark magic coursing through the wound, but either way it was a bitch and a half trying to reseal the injury.

Thankfully, Remus was almost as good a healer as Madame Pomfrey. "It's almost closed," Remus said softly a few moments later, soothing the wand over the gaping hole in Sirius's hip. "Pomfrey'll keep you in the infirmary for days if she sees this, but I've almost closed it up. You should be out of here by this afternoon."

"Thank Merlin," Sirius murmured as Remus used the edge of the blanket to clear away the remaining blood. "And thank you," he added, as Remus bent his head low over Sirius's hip, concentrating on cleaning the wound thoroughly.

"Like you'd do any less if you were in my position," Remus replied, stroking one finger over the bite mark. Sirius shivered as Remus lowered his head and placed a kiss, gently, on the injury. He glanced up. "Could I get infected, if I touch this?" he whispered, sounding not frightened, but merely curious.

"I don't know," Sirius replied honestly. "But I know it's too easy to infect you in other ways." He pulled Remus up and captured his mouth in a kiss, biting gently on his bottom lip, not enough to break the skin. It was too easy to lose control, especially when things got heated between them; Sirius sometimes longed to let the wolf take over, but held back for fear of hurting Remus, the worst-case scenario he could think of.

He let his lips wander from Remus's lips to his neck; he kept his teeth bared just over the taught skin of Remus's throat. "I could do it," he murmured. "One bite, and…and you'd be like me. Does that scare you, how easily I could hurt you?" He didn't need to add, _because it scares me_. Remus and Sirius both knew the truth.

Remus drew back just enough to lock eyes with Sirius. "No," he said firmly. "Because I knew you'd never do it. You could hate me, you could be angry enough to do anything to me…but you'd never wish this on anyone else." As usual, Sirius was startled by Remus's ability to verbalize all of Sirius's feelings.

"Most of the time you're too reckless for your own good," Remus continued, trailing his lips over Sirius's jaw, "but not with this. You're so controlled, when we're together, doing this…" He nipped at Sirius's neck. "You'd never lose focus long enough to bite me. And besides," he added with a smile against Sirius's throat, "you love me too much to hurt me."

Sirius thought about how Remus had been there for him since the moment he woke up yesterday to the moment he woke up today, healing his injuries, soothing his fears, completely devoted to Sirius. It was obvious Remus was completely enamored by Sirius, and he could only hope his own feelings for Remus were as evident.

He grasped one of Remus's hands and brought it to his lips, kissing each finger gently. "You're right," was all he could think of to say. "But you better get back to the castle before Pomfrey shows up. She might fly into a jealous rage that she isn't the only one to see my incredibly attractive naked body and irresistible scars."

"I like your scars," Remus whispered with a smile, trailing his finger over a long stripe across Sirius's chest. Sirius shivered.

"Later," he murmured with one last kiss to Remus, who stood with a grin and made his way toward the door, pausing only when Sirius called out a quick, "Wait a second."

Remus turned and grinned when Sirius bit his lip, smirking. "I really do love you," he admitted, almost sheepishly.

Remus rolled his eyes and grinned even wider. "I know you do, you furry little poof," he replied, shoving his hands in his pockets and strolling out the door.


End file.
